Whatever your view on man-made global warming, you had to feel sorry for Professor Phil Jones, the man behind the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia. He has already compared himself to Dr David Kelly, and has said he even briefly contemplated suicide.

Today he made his first public appearance since the row began. He looked taut, nervous, often miserable. At times his hands shook. For those of us who, seven years ago, watched Kelly give evidence to another committee, the resemblance was disturbing and painful.

The questioning from the Commons science committee was courteous but extremely persistent – unlike some committees, who can resemble a dog, chasing after whatever ball the witness has thrown. At one point – perhaps he did not realise what an insult this was – he found himself compared to the disgraced Speaker. Graham Stringer MP said: "Michael Martin lost his job because he [also] thought it was more important to pursue the leakers – of MPs' expenses – rather than pursue the issues."

The low spot for Jones came when he was asked why he had replied to one interlocutor that he wasn't going to make his data available, because he only wanted to find something wrong with it. But wasn't that the way science worked?

"I have obviously written some very awful emails," he replied glumly.

"But you wouldn't let him have the data," said Stringer.

"We had a lot of work and resources tied up in it," said Jones, digging himself in a little deeper.

Next to him, holding a metaphorical hand, was Professor Edward Acton, his vice-chancellor, who interrupted at intervals to tell the committee what a splendid fellow Jones was and how his unit was doing magnificent work warning the world.

Which made it all the more astonishing that it turns out that the unit has only three full-time members. Given the importance they claim, it's as if the British army consisted of half a dozen men and an officer.

Acton conceded that not everything pointed in the same direction. It's acknowledged that several hundred years ago Earth became much warmer. If we knew why, we could explain a lot. "The early medieval period is something we should spend more time researching," he mused. This was probably the first time anyone had said that to a parliamentary committee since Simon de Montfort ran the place.

Finally Jones was released and he made a sudden, grateful escape. He hadn't been helped by an earlier witness, Lord Lawson, father of Nigella and now Britain's best known climate sceptic. With the aggression of someone who used to go eyeball to eyeball with Margaret Thatcher, Lawson laid about the "climate alarmists" and, without naming Jones, spoke with dripping contempt. "Proper scientists, scientists with integrity, wish to reveal their data and all their methods. They do not require freedom of information requests!"

He was asked why he didn't reveal the name of all his donors. "This is called playing the man and not the ball, and in football he'd get a yellow card!"

Lawson has been around long enough to see off pipsqueak MPs, even if their questions are, actually, quite valid.